Haul Road Best Management Practices Document Withdrawn

As a result of comments and suggestions received from affected stakeholders, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has withdrawn plans for rulemaking intended to assist facility owners and operators in identifying and applying appropriate best management practices to control the emission of fugitive dusts from their paved and unpaved haul roads. This decision was the outcome of the review of comments and suggestions received at an information meeting held July 25, 2007 on the proposed best management practices document, and subsequent meetings conducted with several affected stakeholders to hear their specific concerns.

Many of the proposed best management practices are currently included in the Iowa Administrative Code as reasonable precautions for reducing visible emissions of fugitive dusts. The DNR has future plans to update the reasonable precautions currently in rule to include minimization of vehicle speed on plant haul roads as a means to reduce fugitive dust.

Some commenters suggested that access to tools to assist in the calculation of haul road fugitive dust emissions would be helpful. The DNR is in the process of developing a spreadsheet tool that can be used to calculate emissions for construction permitting and emissions inventory purposes as needed. This tool will be posted on the Air Quality web site when it is completed.